Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I am interested in Senator Conroy’s formal interjection, but why, Senator Conroy, is this Labor Party policy on uranium on Mr Albanese’s website as of this morning? It seems rather curious.

The Labor Party is one and indivisible, as I understand it. I am told there are no factions, there are no different branches; it is just one indivisible party. Why is it then that the Labor Party, in its South Australian configuration, approves uranium mining and yet, in my own state of Queensland, the Labor Party refuses to allow uranium mining? This is in spite of, and flies in the face of, calls by the Labor member for the state seat of Mount Isa, Ms Betty Kiernan, to allow uranium mining. It also flies in the face of calls by the former Labor Party minister for mines, Mr Tony McGrady—who is now a lobbyist, as I understand it, for the uranium industry—for an extension of uranium mining in Queensland, and therefore in Australia.

I draw the Senate’s attention to a report in the North West Star of 7 May 2009, when all of the mayors representing the shires between Mount Isa and Townsville met in a group, which is called the Mount Isa to Townsville Economic Zone, MITEZ—they are part of that economic development zone. They all called for the Queensland Labor government to allow for uranium mining in Queensland, because, as those mayors rightly pointed out—and they would know, because they are the leaders of these shires—there is a considerable amount of uranium in North Queensland, and they would like to share in the prosperity that South Australians get in being able to mine uranium in the state of South Australia.

I am entirely confused. The head of our nation at the moment is Mr Kevin Rudd and the Treasurer is Mr Wayne Swan. Both of them come from Queensland, and I would assume that they are members of the Labor Party in Queensland that seems to be totally opposed to the mining of uranium. Yet Mr Rudd is the leader of a government which has just allowed another mine to operate in South Australia. You can understand, Mr Acting Deputy President, the cause for my confusion on just what the Labor Party policy is. I would indeed hope that someone might be able to explain it later in the debate.

I notice that Senator Farrell, in his contribution to this bill before us, did say that the opposition had misrepresented the Labor Party’s view and that they had changed their position. And yesterday in an interjection the government leader, Senator Evans, indicated to me that when he was the shadow minister, because he was a good shadow minister, he had changed the policy too. Why then is the Labor Party policy on uranium, which I extracted from no less than Mr Albanese’s website this morning, so different from what we are hearing? And why is Mr Garrett, who we all know has been a lifelong opponent of uranium, suddenly signing approvals for increased uranium mining and export from Australia?

I agree with the mayors in the north and north-west of Queensland that, if it is good enough for South Australia and the Northern Territory to mine uranium, why not Queensland? Senators may recall many years ago that Australia’s first uranium mine was at Mary Kathleen, up in the north-west mineral province of Queensland. It provided a lot of jobs for a lot people and a lot of wealth for the state. It eventually shut down because it ran out of resources, but since then a lot of companies have done a lot of exploration work. I should indicate here, although I do so in my senators’ interests, that I have some shares—not very valuable ones, I regret to say—in companies that are exploring for mining, but I do not want the thought that I might profit from any expansion of mining to be relevant. One might say that the companies I have shares in are much underrated. Notwithstanding that, it is a valuable resource and it is plentiful in Australia.

I understand from evidence given to the Senate inquiry into this particular bill that there is an ability to increase Australia’s uranium production from its current level of around 10,000 tonnes per year to some 30,000 to 40,000 tonnes per year by 2030. Will the Labor government permit that, or will they not? Will the Labor Party, in their iteration as a Queensland government, of which Mr Rudd and Mr Swan are two members, allow that or will they oppose that? Where does the Labor member for Mount Isa stand? Her electorate contains many potential sources of uranium for mining, production and export. I know the old Labor Party provision that if you cross the party line you are out on your ear. One wonders what Ms Kiernan’s future is in supporting that. Or perhaps she only just did that before the state election, when she knew that a lot of the unions, miners and workers out in her electorate did in fact think that it was a pretty good idea to have a look at more uranium mining because it meant real jobs for Australians and it meant real wealth for that part of the country.

I would hope that someone might be able to assist me in just indicating where we are going in Australia with the uranium industry, particularly whilst this government is in charge. I can understand why the Queensland government is distracted and at odds and sods over its uranium policy. I suspect the Queensland government is perhaps more focused at the present time on some of the issues, which some call graft and corruption, happening in Queensland at the moment. We are all aware that a loyal member of the Labor Party, Mr Gordon Nuttall, was recently jailed for bribery offences. But I am horrified to see in today’s paper that, according to the Australian, one of the people who allegedly paid him the money has just today been awarded a Queensland government contract for a prison, I might say, up in the north—the Lotus Glen prison. Perhaps he has been given instructions to fix it up so that Mr Nuttall can serve out his time in a better constructed and better appointed prison. But how could that possibly be? I know that a lot of people say a lot of funny things happen in the state of New South Wales in relation to the Labor Party government, but could this be happening in my own state of Queensland? We know former Labor leader Keith Wright is still in jail, we know that Bill D’Arcy, a Labor member of parliament, is in jail for matters and everybody knows that Mr Nuttall is there on bribery convictions. But surely the Queensland government cannot be awarding contracts on a non-competitive basis, according to the Australian, to a man who was actually a part of the payment of money to Mr Nuttall.